


Adronitis

by Aquielle



Series: Ineffable Emotion [4]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Insecurity, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 09:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6698926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquielle/pseuds/Aquielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys walk a tenuous line between the obvious affection they share and their unspoken desires.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adronitis

**Author's Note:**

> Adronitis: the frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.

Will isn't sure how long he has been aware of this yearning to know Hannibal, truly know him. He's not sure when his interest went from an acute need for self preservation that made him watch Hannibal akin to keeping a wary eye on a predatory cat to a physical craving for closeness.

He knows that the first person to cross the silently agreed upon demilitarized zone will always have to be him and the self-conscious feeling of otherness makes him falter at Hannibal's doorstep over and over again. 

He doesn't want to be presumptuous, that would be unspeakably rude. 

He's normally so good at this type of thing. He can always tell when someone is interested. When they are going to make their move. Half the time he knows exactly what that move is going to be. It has always sucked the spontaneity right out of the situation. It's like watching a movie that you've already guessed the ending too. The nerves that he's told are supposed to accompany romantic encounters have always eluded him, until now.

With Hannibal he understands that there is a depth of love inside him that he can scarcely imagine and a font of rage he dares not believe. For so long he lacked an outlet for one so he indulged the other. Now they remain in a stasis waiting for a crescendo.

All Will knows now is that the butterflies in his stomach have grown restless of captivity and are demanding release.

He catches himself on the verge of saying utterly cliche and ridiculous things during the day and terrified of a rejection that never comes once the sun sets. 

Hannibal has been nothing less than a gracious host, welcoming him into his very bed. For unknown reasons Will can not bring himself to ask for more than the silent company across the Egyptian cotton sheets. 

Fear of the unknowable grips him. How far will Hannibal's hospitality extend? How flexible is his own sexuality? Once he crosses that bridge will everything on the other side burn to the ground? 

He tells himself that if he wants a thing he must not ask permission. He must take it and risk rejection.

He has been the betrayer. He has felt the searing pain of betrayal. His fall from Hannibal's good graces was the most confusing fall he has ever taken. 

They have both professed forgiveness and adoration, but can they ever really move past their past? 

 

 *******

 

Will comes to him every night in the silent hours when all around them is quiet and still. The fragility of those first few minutes, between the faint sound of footsteps outside his door to the whoosh of exhaled breath when Will finally takes his hand and places it over his pounding heart are precious to Hannibal.

He can see the progress. He can touch the physical evidence of the unfathomable inches that have seemed to take an eternity to cross. He knows that Will is tiptoeing towards a precipitous drop, but he longs to taste the delicate fruit that his tender gardening has yielded. 

Will's progress, once bordering on protigal in its leaps, has slowed to a maddening crawl. His meteoric rise stifled by the realization of his vuneribility, exasperated by his inability to give voice to his desires. 

As much as Hannibal yearned to free him of his bonds, Perseus to his Andromeda. He knows Will would bristle at the comparison and the intervention, so he waits.

He feels like he has known Will forever, yet still his innermost workings elude understanding. 

His preoccupation with another should have been a disturbing revelation, a come to Jesus moment as Alana would have put it. Instead it was like a church fire. Smokey tendrils seeping inside him, heat licking at him altering his emotional stability in a fundamental way. Flames causing his very support structures to collapse under their own weight. 

He wonders how long it will take for the beauty to be revealed through all the ash and destruction. Can Will even see it? Or is he too entangled in their mirroring images, too entwined to separate himself from Hannibal's rapturous fixation.

He tries to remember that he has been at this point for longer than Will. Tries to summon patience from his rapidly depleting reserves. 

Part of him just doesn't care. He hasn't had a craving for intimacy in such a long time that sometimes the prospect of one more night next to Will but so far removed is agony.

The desire to touch has only just been satisfied. He can feel the beating of Will's heart and the warmth of his body through the thin tshirt he wears. The clenching of his hands. The ripple of muscle that echoes the movement. The indecision he can taste in the air is torture.

On nights like this he thinks of Will as a skinny boy, eating catfish in the sticky Southern summer heat. Skinned knees and sweet sweat. Surrounded by the sound of cicadas and the smell of honeysuckle. He thinks of Will shaking off his humble beginnings and his double-edged empathy to end up here. 

The nights drag on. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Rach who is amazing and whom I cannot wait to see. 153 days.


End file.
